Losses still plaguing Sky Germany

The nameplate above the door may have changed, but Sky Deutschland has a €365.8 million hangover from its last days under the Premiere brand.

The losses reflect the €253.9 million write-off of the Premiere moniker by the German pay-TV company that took the Sky name from July 4. Naturally enough there were also costs associated with the rebrand, and with marketing scaled back ahead of the July blitz, 7,000 subscriber losses that took numbers down to 2.364 million as of June 30.

Churn rate, the percentage of subscribers that leave each month, remains at an unhealthy 22.4%. However, gross additions of monthly contract subscribers doubled in the second quarter to 117,000.

There are also signs that the revitalised HD line-up, currently consisting of seven channels, is proving popular. “We are very pleased with progress since the successful launch of Sky on 4 July, with awareness of the Sky brand very quickly exceeding 50%,” said Sky Deutschland CEO Mark Williams. “In these first few weeks, we have seen a very positive reaction from both our existing customers upgrading to the new expanded range of Sky services, including our new comprehensive HD offer, as well as a strong increase in the rate of subscriber additions.”

The number of points of sale will reach 8,000 by the end of August and a team of installation engineers will also soon be deployed.